Author: Jonny Gibbings
Description: "The comedy-hero of Malice in Blunderland’s life is shite. He is inept, depressed, and in a job where the highlight of his day is a swift wank in the customers’ toilets. He has a drug problem so big that the cow-shaped cookie jar in his rank kitchen is usually full of speed and Ketamine. It’s all his ex-girlfriend’s fault."
Review:
Vulgar
This is the definition of vulgarity, with a side of Keystone Cops-esque blundering and fumbling. Seriously, at some points I just hope the guy snuffs it and takes himself out of the gene pool; but then I get all teary-eyed and want to send him flowers. Er, no. Not that. Ever.
The grammar miscues, spelling errors, and the utter lack of a past/present tense coherence are intentional. If they weren't, this would drop to two stars just because that crap ticks me off, even in a genre (is this a genre? What is genre? Where is my cleaver?) like this. But the author told me, and us, that it wall part of the story. So I had to toss the red pen in the bin and read it for itself. Because, as I think about it, it's hard to write like that, when you're a good writer, like Gibbings.
And then I went crazy and a few psychiatrists came for me—they said they were from Pluto, but they wore paper hats and spoke Ukrainian. Don't piss off the Ukrainian mafia, OK? Perhaps that should be something learned in grammar school, or earlier. Look both ways, eat your vegetables, and avoid men named Stadnyk and funny-smelling apple juice. Let this book be a lesson, kids. Oh, but don't let your kids read this.
Did I say this was vulgar and at some times utterly base? If you don't like that kind of stuff, you won't like this, so just don't bother. Don't knock a dude for writing for fun, for a specific audience. If, like me, you had a wonderful relationship with your father, and you miss the hell out of him now that he's dead, you will probably not like the constant "F-U, Father." But if your dad was a deadbeat who beat the crap out of you every day, then it's fine. Perhaps that was the only part of this that got me, but I didn't read the author bio until after the book... That was a tangent, a derail, and utterly meaningless. Do you have a problem with that?
At one point I was wondering when this would all end, but Gibbings then nicely ties up all the little loose ends and wraps the whole bundle of fecal matter in cellophane, and we can get on with our otherwise pathetic and pointless lives. And maybe this reviewer will get off his damned soap box and do something productive, like holler obscenities at an attractive co-worker... or not. You'll have to drag me off this box with a Uni—oh, I see, OK, I'll come down now.
I was given a copy of this for review.
3.8 stars
Additional Info: Seriously, folks, this book is a matter of taste, plain and simple. It was pretty raw at points and I did cringe. But I can't blast a book because it tweaks my delicate predispositions, or saws off a toenail. The writing is stellar, especially with the intentional mistakes—it's close to a perfect first-person rendering.
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